A Fading Phantasm
by wolfpupaek
Summary: Sequel to my other fanfic "Nightmares". Time has passed since the incident with Calaysee and now it is time for Katniss and Gale to step down. Their children Salem and Violet both meet exchange students from District 10. Salem is paired up with the girl for a history project and develops a crush while Violet is just being nice. Neither know the true intentions of themysterysiblings


**I'M SO SORRY!**

**AFTER TWO LONG YEARS OF WAITING AND ME HITTING MYSELF ON MY HEAD TO TRY TO FIND TIME TO WRITE!**

**I PRESENT TO YOU THE SEQUEL TO NIGHTMARES!**

**A FADING PHANTASM **

_A girl and a boy with blonde hair and brown eyes, sit on chairs, staring emotionlessly ahead. _

_ A women shakes her head and sighs in annoyance, "This just won't do". She tilts her head and stares at the children for a few seconds, unblinking. She bends down to their height and keeps staring into the children's eyes._

_ "The problem... is there is no emotion..." The women thinks out loud. The boy shifts his weight while the older girl, who was much more mature, remains completely motionless. "But emotion is weakness when it comes to these sort of things... of course no emotion can be suspicious..." She shakes her head and pushes away the thoughts, "Those kids don't even know who their own mother is... they won't know to be wary..."_

_ The women walks over to the wooden desk and opens the top drawer. The drawer was full of papers, of all sorts, but mostly tax related. None were in her name. She lifts the papers carefully and places them on the table. Once the papers had been removed, a lock was revealed. The women pulls out a necklace, which was more like a wire with keys hung on it. She pulled it off her neck and flipped through the keys, a certain sense of familiarity flowing through her fingertips. The keys were virtually identically, only the teeth were different, and it was a wonder how she managed to tell which key fit into which lock. She pauses at one before continuing to shuffle through the keys with care. Eventually, she finds the key she was looking for and lets the other keys fall to the side. She stares at the key for a second, double checking herself even though she knows there is no reason to. She's always been right. Taking the key into her hand she reached down into the drawer and sticks the key into the lock. She turns it carefully, making sure every rod inside the lock lifts into the correct spot. The click of the lock unlocking rings in the wooden study. The boy winces, the girl stares ahead. _

_ The girl couldn't be older than 16. Her features were in between the stages of adolescence and the late stage of tween-hood. Her jaw was well defined on her face, which gave her an even sharper glare. Her face was all angles and lines rather than smooth curves, like her brother. Her baby fat was all but gone. Her hair was in between dirty blonde and golden blonde. It was not as blonde as her mother but it was still clearly blonde. She wore her hair constantly pulled back into a ponytail, never a braid. Her mother never allowed it any other way. She had always told her that a braid was too childish for her. Therefore the girl never learned how to braid her hair, though it fascinated her. Her nose was very precise. It wasn't exceptionally large but it was definitely on the larger scale for a nose a female. A slight bump, from the constant broken noses she received as a child, could only be see on her nose when viewed from the side. Her eyes were a dark brown, so dark you could barely see her pupils. Inside the brown there were specks of green. Where the gene of green came from, she didn't know, as neither of her parent's had any green in their eyes. She was fairly tall however her legs weren't exceptionally long. _

_ Her brother was much shorter than her, possibly because he was much younger, around 10 years old, or possibly because he got the bad deal on the genes. His hair was thin and fray but golden blonde, like his mother. It was parted to the side and usually was only brushed in the morning. It was low maintenance however, it always seemed to cause trouble for him. It grew too fast and tended to cover his eyes for a couple weeks before their mother cut their hair once again. His eyes were a much lighter brown with specks of gray. It was a strange combination which made looking at his eyes for too long strange. Only a few people would be able to look for a fairly long time into the them without feeling strange. His eyes were warmer than the girl's. The 6 years difference really showed when you compared the two siblings eyes'. The boy still much of his baby fat, making him look younger than his actual age. Plus his smaller stature, it made him look fairly chubby, though he was generally underweight for his age. His jaw was more hidden and generally his face was curvier. His nose was smaller and pointed upwards, almost like a button nose but not as pointy. No bumps were visible on his nose, though he had earned his fair share of bloody noses. _

_ Their mother pulls the key back out and opens the drawer carefully, flipping the hardy piece of wood over to reveal an organized mess of colourful wires. There was a small black box in the middle, where eventually all of the wires met. She sets the piece of wood to the side, wire side facing up. The blonde turns her attention back to what was underneath the piece of wood. It was stacked to the brim with papers and paper folders. She reached into the pile and picks up the first folder. She lightly brushes her fingertips over the folder, before they reach the edge of the folder. Closing her fingers over it slowly, she pulls the folder open revealing the first paper. It looked like a bio sheet, every single piece of standard information was squeezed onto the double sided piece of paper. Paper-clipped to the page was a picture of the unfortunate victim to the women's wrath. _

_ The woman ignores that page and flips through the pages. They were all pristine except for the edges. The edges were well worn, showing just how many times she had flipped through those pages. She flipped to a page that was hand-written with multiple details on the events that occurred. She reads it over quickly, though there was no real reason for it. She already knew what she had written. Flipping to the next page in the folder there is a smaller and less detailed bio sheet. She lifts up the first page and then the page after that and puts them off to the side. She keeps the folder opened to where she was, and takes the paper clips off those two pages. _

_ Moving her way around the desk to the chairs where the children remained, she hummed a small four note tune. Neither of the children reacted to it, she had hummed it so many times they barely even heard it anymore. Once in front of them, she handed each of them one of the two pictures._

_ The boy looks down at the picture in his hand. There was a small pastel white border, only 2 or 3 cm wide. The picture itself was square shaped and fit nicely in the palm of the older girl. It was a little bigger compared to the boy's. _

_ In the girl's picture was a boy. His face was soft and he seemed to be around her age. His eyes were closed in the picture but she knew he had grey eyes. His mouth was pulled up into a large grin, showing most of his teeth. Why he was so happy, she wasn't sure about though that didn't matter that much. Even though it was just a picture it seemed like the girl was able to read everything about him. The only thought she could think was, "This will be easy". The boy from appearance seemed like someone who was manipulated easily. She frowned at the observation. That was strange considering his parents._

_ The boy looked down at his own, studying every detail. The picture he had was of a girl with dark brown hair, and big grey eyes that stared straight through him. His stomach was churning. He had been informed on what to do countless times and each time he remembered every detail. However, that just made him more nervous. He still had a little bit of free will inside him, from the books he sneak read. How he got them no one in the family knew, but when they found them he was punished severely. Not physically but emotionally. No one spoke to him for three months. He started making observations about the picture like he was supposed to. The girl seemed open and not necessarily the smartest person in the world to be kind. He shakes his head. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with curiosity but somehow she still seemed like she had no concentration. That was a fatal combination that made her less that smart. Though the boy knew he wasn't supposed to get overly confident but a wave of relief was flooding over him leaving only a sense of growing confidence. This was going to be so much easier than he had expected it to be. _

_ He glances over at his sister who he found was already looking at him. Her mouth twists up just slightly and he nods ever slightly. Their mother pretends not to notice, though she was smiling a bit as well. _

_ Too bad they were never taught the phrase, "Never judge a book by its cover."_


End file.
